The Only Exception (3 page)

Four

The ride is only five minutes, but still painful, since my head feels like it’s being whacked with a baseball bat every time we drive over a little bump. Upon arrival, I again decline help as I climb out of the car. I push open the front door and kick off my rubber slippers. “Grammy! We’re back!” I call, almost wincing at the shot of pain through my head.

“Hi sweetheart, I though you and McKayla wer-“ Grammy cuts off her own sentence as she emerges from the kitchen and lays eyes on me. “Annie, what happened to your eye?”

“Nice to know it looks good already,” I grumble. “This genius decided to drop in on my wave and kicked me in the eye when he cut me off.”

“I’m really sorry, Mrs. Maverick,” Sawyer apologizes. “I really didn’t mean to. I just got too close, didn’t see her and I couldn’t stop.”

“Oh, no worries,” she assures him. “Annie, it really doesn’t look that bad. It’ll heal up in a few days.” No worries, my eye. Literally. You want to tell me I have no worries, take a look at my face. “We’ll just get some ice for that. You go lay down on the couch, Annie. McKayla, could you go back and get one or two pillows off her bed?” McKayla nods and disappears down the hall. “Sawyer, Daniel, make yourselves at home,” Grammy invites. “You can put on a movie if you like. Help yourself to anything that’s not covered in tin foil in the fridge.”

“Thanks. I’ll go get her board,” Daniel says, exiting the entry hall. An awkward silence fills the room, feeling louder than any sort of noise.

“Want to watch something?” Sawyer asks a moment later. I shrug and point at the DVD cabinet.

“Help yourself,” I reply. He strides across the room, opening the glass door to examine my grandparents’ DVD collection. Eventually, he holds up
The Avengers
. I shrug again as I lie down on the long, leather sectional couch, back turned to both screen and idiot.

Sawyer occupies one of the other sides of the sectional and McKayla emerges, carrying my favorite pillow. Regardless of the fancy sheets I have at my parents’ houses, this is by far my favorite pillowcase ever. It’s white, with big splotches of pink dye here and there. On each splotch is a small gathering of three or four butterflies, with other tiny color spots scattered around them of teal and yellow. The texture is silk-like, but not in the least bit stiff or cold.

I try to get comfortable, but even after applying the squishy reusable ice pack Grammy gives me wrapped in a towel, I’m still shifting and squirming, switching back and forth from laying on either side to my back. “Do you want some help?” Sawyer offers. I feel like being stubborn, but the discomfort gets the better of me.

“If you don’t mind,” I reply meekly. He stands and crosses to me.

“Sit up for a second,” he instructs. I sit up and move the pillow out of the way. He takes it from my hands and arranges it along with a couch pillow to support my head a little bit more. McKayla returns from my room with a scarf and Sawyer ties the ice pack around my face like a blindfold, then returns to his seat. I lay back down, close my other eye and try to relax. The cold seeps through the scarf and slowly numbs the upper right corner of my face. I hear the door shut and someone that’s most likely Daniel plop down in the spot next to Sawyer, when suddenly, music starts playing from the dining room table.

McKayla hops up and brings my phone over to me. Without taking off my blindfold/ice pack, I answer it. “Hello?”

“Hey, surfer girl,” my dad greets cheerfully. “How’s Oahu?”

“It’s good,” I say, only half lying. “How’s Cali?”

“Oh, the usual,” he replies nonchalantly. “Grammy & Papaw?”

“Terrific,” I assure. “Waves are good. You should’ve seen me this morning, I was charging on three or four of the waves I caught.” Charging= on fire. Doing well. Tearing it up.

“Choka!” he laughs, meaning “awesome,” basically. “I’ve gotta go. I just called to make sure you were okay. My next client just got here.”

“Okay,” I reply. “Love you. Bye, Dad.”

“Love you too. Bye, Annie.” The line goes dead.

I hang up and listen to
The Avengers
on the television for a bit, but the blissful quiet is quickly interrupted again. “Hello?”

“Hi honey, Grammy and Papaw said you went surfing earlier so I decided I’d try you again,” my mother chatters away. “You’re okay, right?”

“Yes, Mom, I’m fine,” I fib.

“Okay sweetheart,” she responds. “I’ve got another call coming and I’ve just arrived at a client’s house. Call you later!”

“Sure, Mom,” I promise. “Love you.”

“Love you too,” she echoes. “Bye.”

“Bye.” Another dead line. As Robert Downey Jr. talking through the television is the only sound in the room, my headache starts to settle back into a dull ache instead of a piercing throb.

I pull off my blindfold to set my phone on the coffee table in front of me and before I can close my eyes again, Sawyer looks at me curiously. “What?”

“You didn’t tell them I kicked you in the face,” he says confusedly. I close my eyes and sigh, tying the ice pack back around my face.

“I didn’t want them to worry,” I reply simply. That’s only sort of the truth. If they heard I had a black eye, my mother would order me forty different kinds of coverup and about fifty different kinds of eye makeup. My dad would most likely want to get me some kind of gadget to hold an ice pack on my eye for me or a robot to do stuff for me. Seriously, when I get hurt, sometimes I just want a dad who will say “walk it off, you’re fine” and a mom who will give me some Tylenol and tell me to sleep, not everything else I could possibly buy.

We sit like we are for about two more hours, with Grammy bringing sandwiches in at lunchtime and various movie watchers helping me take the ice pack off and tie it back on at 10-minute intervals. I notice Sawyer’s hair, now dry, is a medium brown, almost like a cross between auburn and chocolate, that he runs his fingers through, sweeping it off to his left.

Grammy comes over a little later and evaluates my face. The swelling in my eye, according to her, has gone down, but the bruise will last about a week, maybe longer. Daniel and Sawyer get ready to leave after Grammy suggests I go lay down in my room for a little while. “Sorry again,” Sawyer apologizes on his way out the door.

“It’s okay,” I reply hesitantly, holding up a hand on my way back to my room.

“Later,” they chorus in their Aussie accents. I carry my pillow back to my space and flop as gently as one can flop onto my sunset duvet.

“Thank you, Grammy,” I say to no one in particular, grateful my grandmother could tell I needed to be rid of them. Sawyer, specifically. McKayla drops onto the giant bean bag in the corner. “Yeah, he’s definitely the most fun person I’ve ever met. Likes to dance.”

“Aw, come on, he’s not that bad,” she chides, trying not to laugh.

“Not that bad?! He kicked me in the face, Mac! Then, and this is the best part, he tried to act like it was
my
fault I almost drowned! What would you think if a guy cut you off on the road and totaled your car?” I ask, bringing memories of remarks shouted at other drivers and an ear-splitting car horn. “I’ve seen your road rage, Mac. That guy would be #1 on the CIA’s ‘wanted’ list if you could make it happen.”

McKayla can’t hold it in any longer. Her light, loud laugh bursts forth and she just keeps laughing, unable to stop. “It’s good to have you back,” she laughs.

“Even when I’m all bruised up?”

“Definitely,” she reassures, still giggling.

“Anyway, I just don’t like him,” I continue. “There’s just bad news written all over the whole thing. Not to mention his stupid ego.”

“Fine. Be that way. Just so long as you don’t mind competing against him,” she adds.

“Oh, I don’t mind. I’ll kick his butt any day,” I respond. “Just like yours.” She laughs again and chucks a teddy bear at me. “Foul! Attacking a maimed opponent! Disqualified!” I shout, throwing a pillow at her. She and I start throwing anything relatively soft we can find at each other, both of us shrieking with laughter. My door opens to reveal Papaw, who charges through the room with my surfboard in front of him as a shield.

“Cease and desist!” he commands. We do as he says, still giggling, and he sets my board in the corner. “Annie, if you’re up for it, I can drive you to the offices for signups for those competitions I mentioned.”

“Of course I’m up for it!” I reply enthusiastically. “What competitions?”

“The Oahu Juniors Championships, the Annual Pipeline and, maybe, just maybe, if you do well in the other competitions, regionals,” he says.

“Seriously?!” I exclaim. “Thank you, thank you, thank you! But what if I make it past regionals? I’d qualify for state, right?”

“Right. After state, would possibly be nationals, and certain positions at nationals can get you a spot on the international team for the World Championships,” he explains. “But that means you could be in this for the long haul. And a spot on the world champs team is extremely iffy.”

“What about my parents? Did they agree to this?” I question. He shakes his head.

“I don’t know. I haven’t talked to them yet,” he says. “I didn’t know if you’d want me to.”

“Why don’t we wait and see about the first two, then figure out regionals after,” I decide. He nods approvingly.

“Alright,” he agrees. I shoot a glance at Mac.

“You want to come help sign me up?” I inquire. She shrugs.

“Got nothing better to do,” she replies, standing. We follow Papaw out to the living room and slide on our rubber slippers, bidding goodbye to Grammy. I put on my dark shades, thankful for once that my mother bought the big ones that look like the kind celebrities wear in paparazzi photos. They’re big enough to cover my eye and the discoloration spreading around it.

“Try not to get kicked in the eye this time,” Grammy calls on my way out the door. I laugh loudly.

“Don’t worry!” I answer. “We’re only going to the surf offices. We’ll be back soon.”

The old beater clunks along, getting us from point A to point B in about fifteen minutes. A little bell rings as we open the glass door to the office. The white walls are covered in posters of great surfers like Kelly Slater and Laird Hamilton. A short girl’s blonde ponytail evilly flips around as her head turns towards us from behind the front desk. “Mr. Maverick,” Sally Emerson greets in her high-pitched voice, smiling. She looks to me with her smile becoming sweeter than a spoonful of sugar. “Annie! You’re back!”
“Hi Sally.” I reply through gritted teeth, grimacing as I take my glasses off. Her mouth drops open slightly, quirked up at the corners.

“What happened to you?” she asks in awe. I really need to look in the mirror. You’d think this would’ve occurred to me before we left the house.

“Sawyer Hensley,” I reply.

“Really?” she asks, intrigued, knitting her eyebrows together. “What’d he do?”

“Dropped in on my wave and kicked me in the face,” I elaborate.

“It was accidental,” McKayla assures her.

“Sally, can you get us the signups for Junior Champs, Pipeline and regionals?” Papaw interjects before this can get any uglier.

“Of course,” she replies. She shoots me a look. It appears sweetly curious, but it’s the kind of sweet that you cannot get without a dash of devilishness. “Back in the game, Annie?”

“If no one kills me before I can get on my board,” I joke. She laughs exaggeratedly and hands me the papers, which I begin to fill out.

Sally organizes papers as Papaw reads the regionals pamphlet and I work through the forms, consulting Papaw on what events to go for. McKayla picks up a magazine and begins to read. Finally, I finish and give them back to Sally, who stows them in a folder. “You’re good to go,” she replies. “See you there.” Great. First competition in a week. Let’s hope the skateboarding and snowboarding in New York pays off. Bonus if I can kick Sally Emerson’s butt (which I totally can).

Sally thinks she’s the best surfer girl on Oahu, but she’s delusional. She’s good, but she’s never been the best. No matter how popular she is at the mall or in school, that’s no advantage out in the ocean. She and I have been pitted against each other since my first competition when I was 5. I won, of course. She came in second, and has hated me ever since. McKayla’s gotten better since then, so she’s not particularly fond of her either, but she hates my guts. She doesn’t like anyone who can one-up her, and I have every time I’ve been here to compete.

“Can I go back out now?” I plead. Papaw laughs.

“No, I think it’d be best to keep that on ice a little longer,” he responds, gesturing at my eye. I make a fake pouty face and cross my arms, but he just laughs again.

After bidding Sally goodbye and driving home, McKayla decides to go back out on the waves. “Gotta get a jump on the competition,” she says, winking. I laugh and head back to my room, calling a hello to Grammy on the way.

Five

I crash on my bed, crank up the stereo and select Mayday Parade’s version of “Somebody That I Used to Know” on my computer. Using my one good eye and holding a new ice pack on the other, I scroll through Twitter. Amy’s already posted a ton of photos from camping with Logan. It looks like she’s having a blast. I pull out my iPhone and take the ice off my bruise to capture a selfie. Ouch. Now I know why people have been so shocked all day. The bruise is dark purple with blue around the edges, encompassing my entire right eye socket and a bit below. It does not look pretty, to say the least.

I snap a quick photo and add the caption “1st day back in Oahu. Surfing, got kicked in the eye, suffice to say, my day has been interesting. #trainingmishaps.” Tweet. I continue to scroll, until the little device buzzes with a text from Amy. “So… Logan kissed me at the campfire a few minutes ago…” I roll my eyes, but text back “Aww sweet :) congrats. Loved seeing your pics on Twitter.”

It’s not that I hate love. I don’t. In fact, I frequently read love stories and watch all those chick flick romantic comedies. Jane Austen is one of my favorite authors, and pretty much all she ever wrote was romance. It’s just that I know that’s what they are: stories. Fiction. Love like that is too good to be true, and I don’t want my best friends getting hurt because they’re mistaken that it is true.

Speaking of stories, I pull the sequel to
This Present Darkness
off my bedside table and try to read with my one eye. Unfortunately, I can’t wear my glasses with the ice pack and it’s a pain reading with the one eye. I don’t need glasses all the time, but I depend on them heavily for up close reading or working on the computer. Well, scrap that idea.

I turn off the music and pick up the guitar in the corner. A beautiful instrument, made of all Koa wood, a gorgeous Hawaiian wood that almost all surfboards used to be made out of, and some still are. It’s my favorite out of the three I have. I have my favorite acoustic that stays at my dad’s house most of the time, a black Fender Strat and amplifier at my mom’s house and a black Taylor acoustic at my mom’s house.

My left hand fingers skim over the neck and my right hand hits the strings, damping them slightly and start playing “Before He Cheats” by Carrie Underwood. Sometimes, a good Carrie Underwood breakup song is the only way to let out frustration. Even if you haven’t broken up with anyone, they’re still great for letting off steam.

After a little more guitar, I hop up and head out to the living room, taking my pillow with me. Browsing the DVD case, I’m in the mood for an old favorite. Something to cheer me up. “What are you thinking?” Grammy asks, settling into the couch. I hold up the case for the 2005
Pride and Prejudice
starring Keira Knightly and Matthew MacFayden, based on the Jane Austen novel. She smiles. “Good idea,” she replies as I slide the disc into the player.

“I love this movie,” I sigh. She nods.

“How’s your eye?” she inquires. I shrug and take the ice off for her to see. She inspects it and nods.

“Sawyer gave you quite the bruise,” she states. “You really can’t hold this against him, though. He’s as sweet a young man as you’ll ever meet.” I laugh.

“You know the phrase ‘adding insult to injury?’” I inquire. She nods and I point at my eye. “He added injury to insult.” She laughs that familiar musical laugh I love.

“I’m serious, though. He’s a very nice boy,” she remarks after she’s stopped laughing.

“I’m sure he is,” I retort. “When he’s not dropping in on other people’s waves and kicking them in the face.”

“Yes,” she laughs again. I lay back with my legs over her lap and hold the ice to my face, watching Elizabeth Bennet’s tale of the ups and downs of her and her sisters’ love lives unfold for the next two hours in front of my eyes. Well, eye.

After the movie, she heads into the kitchen and I decide to sit at the bar so I can keep talking to her. “So what’s new in the world of Andrea?”

“Not much,” I reply. “School year was good. Read a lot. Read, like, the best book ever.”

“What book?” she asks, wiping down the counter and preparing to make dinner.

“
Three Hours Too Soon
,” I sigh. “Lots of great lines, great love story, very tragic.”

“Maybe I’ll read it,” she supposes.

“Movie comes out the day before Junior Champs,” I add. “If you want to read it, read it before then. I probably won’t be able to shut up about it after going to see it.”

“Maybe I’ll just go see the movie then,” teases Grammy, winking. She and I have a thing for reading the book before watching the movie. The only thing I don’t read before I see it is Shakespeare and that’s because it’s easier to follow the story line if you can see what’s happening instead of just reading the script. Boy, kids at school drove me nuts about that when
The Hunger Games
came out. Almost none of them read the books, so, of course, they missed nearly half the details of the plot line.

“I’m excited for competition,” I state. My fingers start to trail around the counter in various patterns.

“Good. How often did you skate back north?”

“Every day, or as close to it as I could get,” I reply. “A lot of the local skaters taught me new tricks that I can’t wait to try on the water.”

“Sawyer skates, too,” she informs me. “He competes at surfing and apparently used to snowboard back in Australia during the winter.”

“Cool,” I reply absentmindedly. “I kind of figured he did. He was doing skating tricks before he kicked me in the face.”

“So do you really not like him?” Grammy asks.

“Grammy, he kicked me in the face,” I respond shortly.

“Yes, but I hit you in the face on accident and knocked out your loose tooth when you were ten,” she points out. “And you still like me.”

“That’s different,” I argue. “That was an accident and you’re my grandma.”

“You really think he meant to kick you?” she asks skeptically.

“No, but he dropped in on my wave on purpose,” I explain. “The kick in the face was a byproduct of that.”

“Sweetheart, he got too close and couldn’t correct the mistake before it was too late. He didn’t see you,” she defends. I huff and hop down off the barstool, climbing over the back of the couch to lay back again. I know he didn’t really mean to kick me, but the thought of letting him get off easy after dropping in on my wave makes me want to keel over and die. And the whole “it wasn’t my fault you almost drowned” thing doesn’t exactly boost his position on my “People I Like” list. It does, however, raise him a few places above Sally Emerson and just below Veronica Roth on my “People I Want to Punch in the Face” list. I’m sorry, but
Divergent
? Immense wasted potential. Great first book. I thought it could recover from the second book in the trilogy and get better, but boy, was I wrong.

Regardless of my aggravation with authors who missed the “Unless Your Name is Shakespeare, Don’t Kill Your Main Characters” memo, Sawyer Hensley is not on my good side right now.

The steady rhythm of my grandmother’s knife chopping pineapple on her wooden cutting board pounds away as I pick up my phone and scroll through Twitter again. Nothing new. Instead, I switch to Instagram, glancing at my friends’ photos intermixed with my favorite celebrities’ pictures. Taylor Swift’s cat did something adorable; Harry Styles took a random photo; Michael Clifford dyed his hair again; the usual. Social media. What would we do without it?

Grammy calls Papaw in to dinner a little later from the garage. Did I mention my Papaw restores old motorcycles? He spends most of the day in the garage, fixing up old pieces of junk into well-oiled vintage beauties. Hands coated in grease, he immediately heads to the kitchen sink. “Why can’t you get scrubs that smell like seawater or motor oil?” Papaw questions, using the “Vanilla Breeze” sugar scrub to get the black goo off his hands.

“Because you get enough of that on your hands as it is,” Grammy replies plainly, her eyes twinkling. I smile, happy to watch the playful banter between my grandparents. I envy them sometimes. My grandparents are among the lucky few that got it right.

I suppose I’ll amend my earlier statement: True love doesn’t exist anymore. Back before “love” meant two people making googly eyes at each other, it worked. They paid attention to each other’s personalities, quirks and other things that matter so much more than appearance. My grandparents were best friends for three years before he asked her out. By then, they knew what made each other tick. She knew he had a passion for fixing up old things and making them new again. He knew she loved pre-1900s history. True love existed back then because their generation was smart. My generation just wants to have a good time with no strings attached. Unfortunately, that means girls with standards end up as old cat ladies, or divorced and trying to drown the pain in something else, whether it be work, drugs, alcohol or other men. It might not be pretty, but it’s true.

Grammy brings a large pot over and I smell one of the best scents known to man: My grandmother’s Char-siu. It’s a Chinese version of barbecue pulled pork with a sweet and tangy Hawaiian glaze and a slice of pineapple on Hawaiian rolls. Hawaiian rolls are the best bread on the face of the earth. Sourdough is close second, but Hawaiian rolls have a sweet flavor that goes with anything and nothing can match. Yet another thing my New Yorker friends didn’t understand about me. Amy still swears that New York style pizza is better (but that’s unfair because it’s pizza. Pizza trumps all).

“Annie? Would you like to pray?” Grammy asks. I shrug.

“Sure,” I reply. They bow their heads and outstretch their hands toward each other and me. I do the same, linking hands with each of them, and try to come up with a decent prayer. “Lord Jesus, thank you for today. Thank you for bringing me back home to be with Grammy and Papaw. Thank you for this wonderful food Grammy made. Please bless it and let it nourish us to serve you. Amen.” They echo my last word and dig in to the food.

Honestly, I don’t really know what I believe. My parents and grandparents are Christians, but I don’t really know where I fit. I don’t get it. A God that loves and protects and all that wouldn’t let me get caught in the cross-fire of the fight between my parents, right? Well, here I am. What’s up, God? Still working on that plan? I could use some instruction right about now. Or anytime between now and ten years ago would’ve been nice.

“So, training,” Papaw starts. I listen attentively while chewing the most delicious thing in the world. “I’d say we’ll go on dawn patrol and get up at six-thirty and get you to Sunset, a ways down from Pipeline.”

Sunset is Sunset Beach, which starts at the notorious Banzai Pipeline and goes on for about two miles. It’s one of the spots where the Vans Triple Crown of Surfing competition is held in the winter. Unfortunately, summer break happens during summer. The best big waves happen in the winter, so all the big competitions are in the fall and winter. It’s also where the Oahu Junior Championships are held, so I’ll be competing there in a week.

“Sounds good,” I say, nodding. “What do I do about my eye though? Can the saltwater hurt it worse?”

“Power through your training and I’ll give you some drops to put in when you get back. You can ice it, too,” Grammy consoles. I nod.

“Since I didn't stay to watch you yesterday, I’ll just let you do what you like for a few waves and see where we should start with training,” Papaw suggests. I nod again, alternating between excitement about surfing and utter bliss over Grammy’s Char-siu.

After dinner consists of my doing the dishes, Grammy wiping down the kitchen counters and Papaw flipping channels until he finds some news program to watch. As interesting as this is, I decide to go to my room and see if my parents have any time for me whatsoever.

Upon viewing the gorgeous floral environment outside my back sliding door, I opt to head out there instead of flop on my bed. Settling down in the beach chair just outside my sliding door, I debate who to call first while listening to the far-off sound of the waves. I settle on Dad, because he’s in my same time zone, so he’s most likely done with work, or as done with work as is physically possible for my father.

Punching in the numbers, I hit “Call” and wait. He answers on the first ring. “Hey, surfer girl, how’s it hanging?” he inquires. I laugh, wondering what my dad’s clients would think if they heard him talking like a surfer.

“Hanging loose, Dad,” I shoot back. “How is it up on the mainland?”

“Oh, business as usual,” he sighs. “Lots of meetings, just winning over a high-profile client.”

“As much fun as that sounds, I’m stuck here. I start training for competition tomorrow,” I inform him.

“Annie, you didn’t say anything about competition! That’s awesome!” he answers. I actually did say something about competition. A lot of somethings, as a matter of fact. Is it bad that I barely notice what my dad forgets about our conversations anymore? Practically everything I say is apparently not worthy of his attention or memory.

“Thanks,” I say instead. “I’m excited. I’m signed up for two local competitions and, depending on the results from those, I might have a shot at regionals.”

“Your mother agreed to regionals?” he asked. “That uncharacteristic of her.”

“We’re not certain about it yet,” I dodge, trying to weave my way around the question. “Right now, I’m just focusing on my first competition in a few years.”

“Well, you were pretty good at skateboarding and snowboarding competition,” he rationalizes. “I doubt being in your natural element will hurt you.”

“I know,” I reply. “It is different though, and I’m nervous.”

“Well, hang in there, hon. I’ve gotta go. My assistant is calling me.”

“All right. Love you, Dad,” I bid.

“Love you too,” he says, hanging up.